"Real" Education for Financial Literacy

Using current information associated with content area is very important in providing education that is perceived real by our students. I would like to use the information of 2008 financial crisis and the high cost of college education in the US in my financial literacy class. My students will come to realize that if they do not put money into work at very young age, their range of choices are going to be very limited in the future. My students are not going to sit there being lectured about the importance of being financial literate; rather, I would engage them with simulations and video games related to financial knowledge. For example, I would group my students first, and then ask them to go to The Stock Market Game. This website offers educational information about how to invest in stock market and let students have a chance to compete with each other by giving them a hypothetical $100, 000. Students can share their knowledge on their blogs with classmates, such as how to identify potential companies or how to buy and sell at the right moment. This is what real education is like. Prensky (2010) points out the characteristics of real education:

Real, on the other hand, means much more and goes much further. Real means that there is a perceived connection by the students, at every moment (or at least as often as possible), between what they are learning and their ability to use that learning to do something useful in the world. (p. 72)

Through playing the stock game, students constantly put their financial knowledge into use and learn invaluable lesions from mistakes and others. This way, when they grow up, they are better equipped to invest in “real” stock market wisely with the money they make from their part-time job and accumulate sufficient capital to pay off their college tuition.

References
Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning. London: Sage Publishers.